My computer with a fresh clean install of XP Pro a few weeks ago was running fine until I decided to look in Google for some "XP tweaking guide". I must say that I'm a computer techincian in life so I know what was tweaking and I also knew what I was looking for. I'm not that kind that change everything not knowing what I'm doing.

So I read 2 guides online while performing some changes I wanted to my system like turning off Indexing for example and disabling Automatic Update, etc. I may have done about 15 changes in all, most of wich are very common.

Then I restarted the computer and started to get A LOT of Delayed Write Failed Error messages. Often about C:\$Mft and also about all files the computer was trying to touch.

I was a little on panic, I knew I would have to reformat clean install again and I didn't wanted to do that until I figured out what the problem was. So I began to search on Google with keywords, 15 minutes, half an hour, 1 hour later I found enough informations to test something. BTW, I didn't liked what Microsoft said about 40-wires and 80-wires cables hooked up to the hardrive because I'm running a SATA WD360 Raptor and I haven't modified my BIOS at all either.

I reformatted and fresh installed XP. Then I ran RegEdit to go change "LargeSystemCache" from 0 to 1. Restart, nothing happened. I ran RegEdit again to put it back to 0.

Now I installed the ForceWare package because I'm running an Abit NF7-S v2.0 mobo. Then I ran RegEdit to go change "LargeSystemCache" from 0 to 1. Restart, nothing happened. I ran RegEdit again to put it back to 0.

Finally, I installed the Catalyst 4.1 because there is an ATi All-in-Wonder 9600PRO inside the case. Then I ran RegEdit to go change "LargeSystemCache" from 0 to 1. Restart, BANG! Delayed Write Failed! It was impossible to reran RegEdit to set it back to 0 because the computer was so slow, hang, gave error... I tried about 3 restart before waking up and try it in Safe Mode. Now I was able to set it back to 0. Restart, and after a CHKDSK, all was fine again!

I took time to install Catalyst 4.2 over 4.1 and try again but the problem was still there.

So, I still don't know why nobody else have tried that before to point out exactly where the problem was. I looked around Google a lot but didn't find any testing result close to that. I don't understand either WHY that happen AFTER the ATi video driver were installed but I had a clue because many of you were talking about ATi maybe being the problem.

So I hope that was helpfull for you. ATi and "LargeSystemCache" registry setting are a no go. Don't bother tweaking that registry. *****Hopefully, all tweaking guides over Internet will be updated to clarify this***** Now I just hope a program or a driver cannot by itself change that setting. Can anyone confirm why would a company need to change that setting anyway?

If you have spare time and another spare HD, I suggest you try the exact same procedure and see if you get the same results. Clean install then immediatly try to modify the "LargeSystemCache". If no problem, put it back to 0 and then install the ATi driver and try again to modify "LargeSystemCache". If 2 or 3 more can confirm, it would be great.

I'll took another 1 hour to install again a fresh XP for the last time I hope. Then 2-3 hours to set it back like it was, installing all programs again and fine tune it all over again. But this time my "Ghost" hd would be ready. I was just sitting between 2 computers because time was missing to fully migrate one over the new one.

Bye!

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I have the dreaded Delayed Write Failure problem when I connect my Western Digital 200gb drive to a Promise Ultra 100TX2 controller card. I checked the LargeSystemCache setting since I also have an ATI video card. All ninstances of this setting are 0.

I searched around on Western Digital website and found a reference to a hotfix in Windows XP to update the ATAPI.SYS file. Apparently you need to have SP1 installed and the hotfix to use a drive larger than 137gb.

I'm dying to try some of the remedys's mentioned in this thread, but I can't get acces to mysystem.
Safe mode, last good known (in fact all F8 options) or reinstalling won't work because all I get are the delayed write failure messages after reboots.
I've got no boot or recovery cd (yes that's how stupid I am ), anybody can enlighten me how to get acces?

I now get this error on a old MAXTOR drive 40 gig 133, but I thought it was because it was old, can't copy stuff from rom on alternative drives. Will it also report this error if it is on it's way out?

1st of all Very good thread. I have 4 HD in my system, 2 SATA & 2 IDE, WD 200GB is working fine, no probs at all, the other one is a Maxtor 250GB Diamond Max 9, partitioned in 2. Everytime I write to this drive it pops up the dreaded delayed write failed message. This is my 2nd replacement drive from Maxtor & is brand new. Most of the problems has to be Maxtor related as the WD is fine, ive swapped them over, tried Maxtor on its own, no joy. I have a Radeon 9800PRO. Tried windows ASPI fix, LargeSystemCache is disabled. I have an ASUS p4s800-e deluxe board (sis655TX).

Any suggestions? or have we as a community exhausted all venues and its down to the manufacturerers/ Microsoft?

Holy crap! I just went out and bought an ATI Radeon 9800 XT and was really looking forward to trying out some of my new games with it. What else would you do with the best video card on the market? After installing the software that came on the CD with the card, I restarted and was greeted with a whole bunch of delayed write error messages. Going into Safe Mode didn't work but I was able to boot to the last known good configuration and change the registry value from 1 to 0. It would be nice if they would kind of... let you know this will happen, before you spend $500 on the video card. However, I am very happy to see my system working again! Thanks so much for your help!

My problems started after using Tupe Up utilities (which I highly recommend) and optimising my XP workstation to give priority to the System Cache ( I'm using it mostly as a gateway and server). After the reboot I started getting the "delayed write / $mft" errors. Nothing would help, I couldnt make any changes in normal or safe mode, via the system applet, tuneup utils, nor the registry directly. I did however identify the registry key above was set to '1'.

After pulling my hair out and trying a repair I got petrified, my wifes University work is on there, not to mention all my gunk! (I love my gunk).

Anyhow at the end of reading and testing I discovered the "ultimate boot cd" (http://www.ultimatebootcd.com), which I downloaded and burnt. I booted up with it, changed the registry key back to '0' using the offline editor, and hey presto it worked.

Unfortunately I've lost huge amounts of data, and am now getting corrupt system file errors. (This is probably due to the changes in the $mft tables and then the 'fixing' done by chkdsk (fixing yeah...he he he). I do however have all my wifes data, and now i've move that onto my other networked pc, and I will fdisk, and reload windows. Might be for the better. Except I'm such a scatterbrain I can never find my software.

Well, hope that helps, and MASSIVE thanks to the guys at ultimatebootcd, and especially to Victor the author. (give him a donation if this helps)

Keep well,
Greg.

PS: Yes I DO have an ATI Radeon 9000 series card! Thats the problem obviously. (see above)

I have a Latitude D600 and a Radeon 9000
The "Lost write data" msg apeared and I downloaded the "Ultimate Boot CD".
I edited the "System" hive, changed values in both "Control Set 001" and "Control Set 002" and everything worked fine.

If you donīt want to lose data, do not reboot the system, the first time it happened, let run the autochk and boot with the utilities cd.

I have a Dell Latitude D600 with the ATI Mobility Radion 9000 video adapter. I changed the Memory Usage setting from 'Programs' to 'System Cache', which changes the LargeSystemCache setting from 0 to 1, and I experienced the same problems as mentioned by everyone above. I could not login to the system with any account during a normal boot or while booting up in safe mode, 'Delayed Write Failed' errors popped up continuously.

I used the UltimateBootCD registry editor to change the LargeSystemCache back to 0 and it resolved the problem. The system is working fine now. I don't appear to have any residual OS corruption.

Thank you to everyone above who's advice helped me resolve this.

By the way, where's ATI on this one? It seems to me that this is their problem. I searched their website for Delayed Write Failed errors and received nothing related to this issue.

I have just had some experience with this problem lately. Like others, I had changed some settings to try and optimize my XP SP2 installation. After a boot, I was immediately swamped with the "Delayed Write Failed" errors at the welcome screen. The errors pertained to things like C:\$MFT, C:\Windows\system32\config, etc. Fortunately, I couldn't even login past these errors, otherwise I might have had more disk corruption. After several chkdsk /v /f /r c: at command line boot and still more errors, I managed to get into safe mode. Forums like these saved me here. A simple change of the memory cache settings from system to programs solved all my problems and yes...

I have a Radeon 9500 PRO.

This is a pain. I can't believe ATI and Microsoft haven't addressed this clear connection. I refuse to believe this setting should have to be considered so cautiously before changing. Oh, well.

Mine has been occurring for several months now and I have been unable to determine the cause. My box does run very, very hot and I had it shut off overnight (which I never do). While the write error has not yet occurred, it normally doesn't occur every day...it does occur with regularity, though.

My box is a dual AMD 2100 MP+, 1.5 GB of Corsair Registered memory (3 - 512 MB sticks), dual SCSI drives (Cheetah 18 and 36 GB 15k rpm), an external SCSI CD/RW (Plextor), a Pioneer DVR-A03 (internal IDE) DVD burner, and the troublesome piece, a 120 GB firewire drive (Western Digital) that gets about 13 MB/sec, which is what I need for video data throughput. I also have a Lexar Media drive (the purple drive) hooked up for Flash/Microdrives to the firewire and an Epson 2450 Scanner also hooked up to the third firewire port (currently off). I have an HP 970cse printer hooked up to the old USB.

But I do not have a radeon card...rather, it has a Parhelia 128 in it. I had two monitors hooked up and changed the config to one to see if that had any effect. It didn't. But that latter config (one monitor) is the current one.

What tests in the ultimate boot disk are you running? Any other thoughts?

Built a new system recently and not an indication of the Write failure problem, but I made sure I ran the MS service pack as indicated above. Then last night I thought I'd play with the system settings. I set the performance button for memory cache as a priority and rebooted as required. The Write Failure message came up immediately upon reboot. I reset the memory usage to programs and went through the Registry and reset all occurances of LargeSystem Cache to 0 and problem went away.

By the way this new system has an ATI Radeon 9200 video card with a P4 3.0gHz on an Asus P4P800 Deluxe motherboard.